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Children's Clarion Voices Bring on the Holidays

Thursday, Dec. 13, 2012

The Cache Children's Choir performs at Logan’s Tabernacle to celebrate the Christmas season.

Forty-nine children’s voices emphatically declared the start of the holiday season with a 90-minute concert by the Cache Children’s Choir in the Logan Tabernacle Dec. 8 under the direction of Utah State University endowed chair Sylvia Munsen.

The traditional holiday concert featured the Cantate, Concert and Cadet choirs and premiered the newly formed Chamber Singers. The children performed 23 selections in all that ranged from the familiar “Silent Night” to the uncommon “Lullaby on Christmas Eve” by F. Melius Christiansen.

Midway through the concert, Craig Jessop, dean of the Caine College of the Arts, made a surprise announcement regarding an honor bestowed upon Munsen. She was recently awarded the prestigious Medal of St. Olav by King Harald of Norway. An official ceremony will take place in the spring. Jessop expressed his congratulations to Munsen and said the award not only brings recognition to her, but to the children’s choir and the university, as well.

The Cache Children’s Choir is now in its 26th season. It consists of three levels of choirs and two levels of early childhood pre-choral classes including special sessions of training in Orff-Schulwerk. The choir has sung in venues from New York City to London. They have performed Orff’s “Carmina Burana,” Rutter’s “Mass of the Children,” Britten’s “War Requiem,” and Bach’s “St. Matthew Passion” with the American Festival Chorus.

Munsen is a professor and the Beverley Taylor Sorenson Endowed Chair for Elementary Arts Education at USU. She received her degrees from St. Olaf College, Illinois, where she sang in the St. Olaf Choir, and from the University of Illinois. She has founded and conducted boy’s, women’s and children’s choirs during the past 35 years in Arizona, Illinois, Iowa, Maryland, Minnesota and Washington.

Cache Children’s Choir next performs in March in “Celebrate Singing” that involves the Cantate and Concert choirs.

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